Worlds Week Video Highlights

Frank KarstenSunday, August 04, 2013

t has been an amazing week here in Amsterdam. Incredible stories and brilliant plays have unfolded. And many, many hours of video content have been produced.

As I have been writing features, interviewing players, and digging through decklists all week, I haven't been able to watch much of the video coverage. Fortunately, several booth commentators and people on social media alerted me of their favorite games to watch. From those, I selected four great games that featured cool plays on camera. Two of them (one Limited game and one Standard game) came from the World Championship, and the other two (one Limited game and one Standard game) came from the World Magic Cup, providing a nice diversity of tournaments and formats.

So, if you only have time to watch a few of the games that have taken place this week, then I can recommend the ones below.

Wednesday: Brian Kibler vs Ben Stark (Modern Masters draft)

The second game of the Modern Masters match between Ben Stark and Brian Kibler was a pretty good one. It featured a sweet play, which the players described themselves as follows:

Wednesday: Brian Kibler vs Reid Duke (Standard draft)

The first game of the Standard match between Brian Kibler and Reid Duke featured a matchup between two top tier Standard decks, Gruul Aggro and Jund midrange. If you are planning to play Gruul Aggro in an upcoming Standard tournament, you should watch this game. Basically, Brian Kibler gives a masters class on how to pilot the deck. When the situation calls for it, he boldly attacks with his creatures. Yet, he properly holds back Hellrider when he doesn't want to trade it off. Kibler also used Domri Rade very intelligently. In particular, his play with a post-combat Domri Rade to kill Reid's Olivia Volderan was amazing.

Friday: Team Australia vs Team Brazil (M14 Team Sealed)

Game 3 of Brazil's Allison Abe versus Australia's Matthew Anderson was a joy to watch. The Australian had one of the biggest turns ever seen in M14 Limited. He started by using Garruk, Caller of Beasts to put Garruk's Horde in play. As if that wasn't insane enough, Blur Sliver and Manaweft Sliver came down immediately after, tapped for mana, and Anderson just went completely nuts. Basically, Anderson got to play 16 mana worth of cards...on turn six. As you might expect, the next couple turns were pure awesomeness as well.

Friday: Team France vs USA (Team Unified Standard)

The big play started approximately 10 minutes into the first game of the Jund mirror match between Daniel Cecchetti and Timothee Simonot. It was all about the new legend rules from M14, which completely changed the interactions between multiple Olivia Voldaren. Under the new rules, both players can now control one Olivia Voldaren each. Still, as before, if at any point in time a player has two copies of the same legend in play, he has to get rid of one of them. Here's what happened.

Cecchetti had Olivia Voldaren in play, with lots of mana up to activate it. Simonot then played his own Olivia Voldaren. Cecchetti immediately stole it, and promptly sacrificed it for the legend rule. Why would Simonot give up his Olivia Voldaren just like that? The answer is morbid. The legend rule turned on Tragic Slip, allowing Simonot to kill the remaining Olivia Voldaren.

If these games have given you an appetite for more video highlight, then be sure to check out wizardsmtg's Youtube channel. Oh, and make sure not to miss any of the Sunday playoffs. If the above games are any indication, those will almost certainly include more excellent games of Magic.